Ultimately, the complete removal of a tattoo is sometimes the only desirable option for some of the inked. Face or hand placement is a good reason to have tattoos removed since they limit the number of employers who would find you an appealing employee (right or wrong as that might be). Having gang tattoos removed as a step in leading a gang-free life is a great reason to have a tattoo removed.

Tattoos that result in allergic reactions to the ink, either at the time of tattooing or possibly years down the road, are also candidates for removal if the allergic reaction can’t be brought under control. And of course, a simple change of mind, as in the case of the name game, is a perfectly good reason to have a tattoo removed.

Some people would never part with a tattoo, wrong name or fashion statement notwithstanding. They view their tattoos as a part of themselves, places and times from the past that will never really go away anyway. If, however, you are in the raft of people for whom there is no other desrible alternative, you might consider tattoo removal. Let’s talk about the old ways of removal first, mostly so you can be glad for the new.

Old Style Removal

Lucky for you you didn’t want your tattoo removed twenty years ago. Well, hopefully you didn’t anyway. A lot of things have changed since then. Back in the day, there were only three alternatives. Dermabrasion was the first choice and it’s just like it sounds. Imagine taking sandpaper to your skin and rubbing it until there is no tattoo left. All of a sudden pain is spelled “100 grit”. Your second option, Cryosurgery, would at least freeze the area prior to removal., although this procedure was also painful and imprecise.

Third was excision, which was a surgeon using a scalpel to remove the tattoo, stitching you up afterwards and even taking a skin graft from another part of the body to repair the excision if the tattoo was big enough. Some of these procedures are still in use today, depending on the tattoo and it’s specific circumstances. By far and away, though, and to the relief of everyone poised with a sheet of sandpaper over their skin, laser tattoo removal is the standard today, however many types of tattoo removal cream including TCA have also become popular in recent years.

Laser Removal

The obligatory cautionary statement is that the complete removal of a tattoo may not always be possible, even using lasers. Let’s go over how it works first though, and then you’ll see why that statement is so common. A laser is light – very concentrated light, but light. Short pulses of this very concentrated light are positioned on a certain color in the tattoo, passing through the outer epidermis layer of the skin to be absorbed directly by the molecules of tattoo pigment in the dermis. Just as with sunlight (in particular UV radiation), the molecules of pigment absorb energy which they simply can’t handle, breaking their bonds, nearly vaporizing them, and reducing them to smaller sized molecules. When the particles become smaller, the body’s immune system can remove them (white blood cells called macrophages go on the march, scoop them up, and whisk them away). The wavelength of the laser is finely tuned to target a specific color of molecule; other pigments in the tattoo or the melanin in your skin are not affected.

How much of the tattoo gets removed depends on so many different factors: size, location, ability to heal, how the tattoo was applied (amateur or professional) and how long ago it was done. Because there are potentially hundreds of different types of tattoo inks out there, and because we never seem to know which ink was being used, it’d be difficult to know f it can be removed. Laser removal success is color dependent, to a somewhat exact degree when it comes to some colors. For example red tattoo pigment absorbs green laser light. Black and blue tattoos are the easiest to remove while green and yellow are generally considered the most difficult. In general, you could probably say that an amateur tattoo which uses only black or blue ink is easier to remove. Unfortunately, amateurs also sometimes tattoo too deeply, making the pigment harder to reach. A professional tattooist will often mix colors in the process for a graduation effect, which is also more difficult to remove, but will tattoo no deeper than the dermis and at a consistent depth throughout the tattoo.